


Aquila enim et draconem

by ProwlingThunder



Series: coronas regenerationem contritos [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Does Caligo count as a major character?, Identity Issues, M/M, Memories, Non-canon Character Death, Past Lives, Past Relationships, Ravus takes issue with your plot, Recovered Memories, Reincarnation, Soul-shapes, Soulmates, Trauma Wakes Past Lives, canon character death, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:41:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22302025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: But Ravus knows from the moment he picks it up, a blade is his weapon.
Relationships: Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy XV)/Ardyn Izunia, Ravus Nox Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia
Series: coronas regenerationem contritos [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605322
Kudos: 17





	Aquila enim et draconem

**Author's Note:**

> Reincarnation: CC's Gilgamesh reincarnates as Ravus and remembers during the attack on the manor.

He takes to the blade as easy as breathing, right from the beginning. It's a good thing that it's expected of him; if he were a grown peasant picking up a blade for the first time, his skill with it might be fearful, but a young prince is expected to excel in martial prowess, and he does that in spades.

Well. He took to the healer's trident first, though that was... more difficult. With the birth of his sister and the shift into the spare, the rapier fits his hand infinitely better. He breezes through the basic forms with only minor hiccups, most of them caused by being small and young, all of which he will age out of in time.

But Ravus knows from the moment he picks it up, a blade is his weapon.

He doesn't have a blade on him, that night in the grotto, and it's a foolish mistake not to, but it's the culture's customs and he loves his country, truly, his mother and his sister and the future brother-in-law he'll have when his sister marries, the future father-in-law she'll have, so he abides and doesn't take a weapon with him, even though something has set his nerves crawling since breakfast.

At least Mother had listened to him, when he told her he was worried, and arranged for extra guards, but none of that mattered much to him in the chaos on the ground, when General Glauca turned to him and he moved forward to meet the man, forgetting that he was unarmed.   
  


He wondered, much later, if that was why his mother had thrown herself between them. If she had known who he was, buried inside. He wished he could ask her.   
  
He spends the next few weeks with fever, according to the servants, delirious and talking in tongues. Sometimes they sneak his sister in to see him, but try as she might, nothing the young Oracle-in-training does is helpful at all.

These are the things that have transpired while he was insatiable, though: A Niflheim commander has taken over management of the house, a position which was rightfully Lunafreya's for all that she was thirteen. She should be crowned on the second full moon of their mother's passing, according to their laws and customs, but Nifhleim's customs are as different from Tenebrae's as they are the People's. The commander, one of the squires tells him in hushed tones, has made inappropriate overtures to the Crown Princess and refutes all Tenebrae's genteel manners with his barbarism.

They're still waiting for the negotiation party to come from Gralea to discuss terms.

All the soldiers from the grotto are deceased, except for a small unit of five who had been "permitted" to survive. When he asks for their names, he's unsurprised to learn they're part of Lunafreya's security detail, allowed to live when she had permitted herself captured.

The last member of his own detail had succumb to injuries two days before he woke.

The last of the Manor's military force has found themselves forced out of their barracks-- which are presently being used, apparently, by many of the human Niflheim soldiers-- only to be secured in the sky-cells. A few of the squires made it out by pretending to be servants, it doesn't account for much but Ravus is glad for it anyway.

He remembers working with smaller forces.

He considers, very seriously, murdering the commander in his sleep. He decides against it and instead arranges for a sleeping draught to be put into his supper, then he and the squire and a servant lass with a soul of pure fire make their way through the long passages in stonework until they come out at the foot of one of the hills, and Ravus-- Gilgamesh-- fumbles through remembered rituals from his boyhood, from the rites of his children, and peers unto the crystal lake and sees the Midgardsormr coiled around a familiar crown.

In the end, it's all he needs to see.

"If I defeat your puppet general in armed combat," Ravus tells the delegation, though his pale eyes are looking past the negotiator at the disaster of purple hair and unwashed coat, "Tenebrae goes back to being a free land, and my sister is crowned as is proper."

"You're not in any place to make demands," the negotiator tells him, snide, and Ravus pays him no mind. He's already had the army quietly freed and the intruding soldiers quietly locked away. The things he can do when Niflheim is distracted is amazing.

"If you refuse, the entire world will know Niflheim's grand general killed the Queen-Oracle while she defended her son from being murdered," Ravus told him, flat, abstract. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the gold eyes looking back at him were almost... amused?

The negotiator was quiet for a long moment. "...and if you lose?"

I wont, he didn't say. "Tenebrae continues to be its own country, much in the same way Accordo does, I suspect. You realistically cannot swallow the Oracle's homeland the same way you do the rest of your nations."

"Then we have nothing at all to loose by agreeing to this ridiculous display," the man huffed, clearly thinking Ravus couldn't.

Oh yeah. Definitely amusement.

It's not quite as easy to trounce the oaf of a general as he would like, but it does happen. The negotiator is both pale and shaken terribly. Lunafreya looks like she might cry, even as she straightens herself up to come congratulate the victor as Ravus clutches his wounded arm and breathes hard. She reaches up to heal him and Ravus turns the injury away, denying, knowing what the request would cost her. It takes her a few moments to compose herself properly to face the crowd. She doesn't look at the defeated.

His left arm is a small price to pay to make sure the man who laid hands on his sister lays hands on no one ever again.

"Chancellor Izunia," Lunafreya says later, after Ravus has been attended by the healers. They say he might lose the arm in the end, but for the moment it's been about as mended as it can be, and Ravus has a hard time reminding himself not to use it, even though he has a sling. He's so used to reaching out to do things. "As part of the diplomatic party from Niflheim, I would like to cordially invite you to join my brother and I for dinner."

"I couldn't hope to impose on such a thing, your majesty," Ravus' king says, because he's a moron even after all this time.

Ravus is still Ravus, though, and before he was Ravus he spent half his time growing up in his king's court. He knows the proper words to say to be court-approved. He ignores them this time. "Come have lunch with me."

"Ravus!" Luna hisses, quietly scandalized.

He feels his cheeks flush in embarrassment. "Please come have a private lunch with me, your Grace. It would bring me no greater pleasure." Ardyn looked almost caught. Ravus turned his head, watched the man out of the corner of his eye, as his tongue struggled to remember his birth-tongue that was instead of the birth tongue that is.  _ "I saw you in the lake, great serpent king, and my soul is still yours to command, if you have want of an eagle with one wing." _

"Ravus Nox Flueret!" his sister gasped, not knowing the words but clearly guessing by stance and tone there were things that only teenage boys did, but his king and husband startled, and had nowhere at all to run.

"I... It seems I will be accepting in both cases, if your highness permits. I have many questions I should like to ask of Prince Ravus of the country's history."


End file.
